


Pieces of Me

by Taamar



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Episode: s01e13 End of Days, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 18:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4315101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taamar/pseuds/Taamar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t Gwen who brought Jack back after Abaddon, and there’s more to Ianto Jones than meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces of Me

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I've gone a little weird for this one. Sorry about that.

Ianto Jones has never been an ordinary person. Since childhood, he’s had what his mam had called _synnwyr_ ( _Sense_. Ianto always thinks it in English even though Mam used the Welsh word that encompasses awareness and instinctual knowing rather than physical sensations). There is a life energy, or absence of one, in all things, and Ianto has always known. It’s how he knew when his Mam was gone, and when Lisa _wasn’t_. He’d been taught how to see without sight, how to feel without touch, extending his _sense_ to his surroundings. This has not always been to his advantage.

He felt it in Canary Wharf when the Void opened and the Cybermen and Daleks came through. It tore through the fabric of everything, and the pain left Ianto incapacitated in the archives, curled up behind a locked blast door. It wasn’t until all things touched by Void Stuff were pulled away and he was able to function again that he ran off in search of Lisa. When he found her she was still attached to the conversion unit, stuck in a horrid limbo between life and death. But she was _there_ , he could feel it.

From the beginning he’d known that Jack Harkness existed outside the usual rules of Ianto’s _sense_. He wasn’t within the flow of time and life Ianto knew so well, but it was a part of him. He’d felt the pull on it when Jack had healed from the Weevil’s scratch, and he’d recognized the jarring _yank_ when Jack had been killed and revived in front of Gwen on the Plass.

He had also been able to feel when the balance shifted between Lisa and the Cyberman, but he refused to accept it until it was too late. Even after she had thrown him, killed him, and he’d been brought back to life by Jack Harkness’s gift of breath and life, he’d followed her, trying to change the unchangeable. He’d failed.

Since that day, Ianto has kept a secret. While he was dead, he had sensed the swirling of time and the endlessness of death, and when Jack had brought him back, small pieces of both had already lodged within him. Ianto later realized that he’d somehow taken on a piece of _Jack_ as well, and wondered if Jack would have chosen to save him if he’d known what he was giving away. Or perhaps he had, and had done so deliberately, though Ianto couldn’t image why. They were bound together now, somehow; or at least, Ianto was bound to Jack.

It had been that bond that kept Ianto (mostly) sane during his suspension, and after the disaster of the camping trip, when he has been overwhelmed by the disease and decay that surrounded the village.  It had been the odd resonance of the piece of time that had led to him shooting Owen when Jack and Tosh had been back in 1941. It had been the sick oily slickness of the _unlife_ of Abaddon that made him betray Jack.

And now it’s that severed connection that has him sitting in the corner of Jack office, shaking and contemplating something that he knows he should never consider. Jack is dead. Has been for three days, and the shard of _Jack_ Ianto has carried with his since Jack had breathed it into his soul is slowly withering within him. Ianto doesn’t know if he can survive it, but he remembers his mam’s lessons. Ianto knows how to reach out with his _sense_ , and what is that but pushing his _self_ beyond the bounds of his body? And with a piece of _Jack_ inside him, can’t he… put it back?

There’s a word for this, for reanimating the dead. _Necromancy_ , but Ianto thinks that’s a bit melodramatic, and has creepy overtones of the occult, and there’s nothing _dark_ about what he’s planning. He won’t be reviving a corpse (he can’t think of Jack as a corpse, or he’ll start to unravel), he’s simply returning a thing that was lost. And if the return of that thing rights a wrong and brings Jack back to life, well, that must have been how things were meant to be, right? Certainly Ianto doesn’t have the power or skill to bend the laws of nature.

He heads for the archives, then turns back to fetch a blanket from the camp bed in Jack’s quarters (He’d rather not think about how much time he’s spent there- not now), not knowing how long he’ll be in the damp underbelly of the Hub while attempting this. He’s chosen the archives because, more than any other place in the world right now, they’re _his_. If he sends his spirit walking (and what a simplistic way of describing what he intends to do), this is the one place he knows he’ll be able to find himself after. He wraps himself up in the blanket, in the intoxicating scent of Jack, settles into a comfortable position, and thinks there must be some sort of ritual he ought to be using. Surely, with this strange strand of power extending through certain of the old Cardiff families, someone must have come up with some sort of Best Practices protocol, but he has no idea what it might be. His Mam never taught him anything like this, may not have even thought it possible.

Ianto closes his eyes, cradles the bit of _Jack_ in the embrace of his _self_ , and expands beyond his body. The Hub looks odd to his senses, full of things that vibrate differently than the earth-bound energy he’s always known. He can feel Tosh and Owen going about their tasks, pretending that everything will be all right, while their friend and leader cools in the morgue. And there’s Gwen, holding vigil. Ianto knows she’s hoping against hope, that she believes she’ll never lose anyone because she’s never lost anyone before. It can’t happen to her, she thinks, but Ianto knows better. He turns his contemplation from Gwen to Jack. To his _sense_ , Jack has always been an anomaly, even before he’d brought Ianto back. He, like the artifacts in the archives, didn’t (doesn’t) resonate with Earth, but it’s was more than that. Something about him _does_ resonate with the time and death Ianto had brought back with him. And to Ianto’s sightless sight, he is beautiful, as if held eternally in a moment of falling, but not subject to gravity. Even in death, Jack is extraordinary.

Ianto gathers his courage. What he’s about to attempt is a deliberate manipulation of the life force of another. It’s potentially a violation of mind and spirit, more intimate than sharing their bodies, and this, by its very nature, would be done without consent. He hopes Jack will forgive him.

It is Gwen’s kiss that shakes him from his fear. He can’t help feeling a bit proprietary. As much as the archives are, Jack is _his_ ; Gwen has Rhys at home, and Ianto has no one else but Jack. Ianto, and Ianto alone, can bring him back. He eases himself across Jack’s boundaries (where had Jack learned to create those edges? Ianto’s never seen anything like it) and pushes the little bit of _Jack_ he’s been holding into the man, then teases it with the _time_ he’d brought back. There’s the tiniest kindling, then nothing. He tries again. Barely a glow. Despair begins set in until Ianto remembers that Jack resonates with _death_ almost as much as _life_. He gathers both and shoves, uncaring of the harm he might to do himself- if he doesn’t succeed he knows he won’t bother to wake up.

Now Jack looks like himself to Ianto’s _sight_ , but he still doesn’t live. Something is missing. Ianto wills Jack’s heart into motion with the rhythm of his own, holding it until Jack sucks in a quiet breath, whispering ‘thanks you’. Ianto knows Gwen will think it’s for her, but he doesn’t care. He retreats, exhausted but satisfied, returning to the cold corner in the archives where he huddles in Jack’s blanket. He comes fully conscious in his own body and notices two things. One, that he’s been crying and his face is sticky and wet. And two, that he’s left something behind. Not only is the bit of _Jack_ that he’s carried with him gone, he’s missing a piece of himself. He considers whether it bothers him and decides that it does not; he’s already given Jack his heart (not that he expects anything in return), this just makes things official.

He doesn’t know exactly when it happened, but he’s pretty sure he fell for Jack during his suspension, after what was left of Lisa was killed. Jack had been so kind to him even though Ianto could feel his anger at Ianto’s betrayal. He’d offered forgiveness. After Estelle was killed, Ianto had stayed up with Jack, listening to his stories and regrets. After the cannibals, it had been Jack waiting up with Ianto, on hand with painkillers and reassurances. They’d become friends, and Ianto’s proposition, unplanned though it was, had felt more like an extension of that than romance. They were both hurting, both lonely. Why shouldn’t they take comfort in each other?

And now that Jack holds part of _Ianto_ , will that change? Will Jack even notice? Does it matter, so long as Jack lives? When he stops shivering from the chill, Ianto goes back up to the Hub to help Tosh repair the wiring. He keeps his head down, trying not to let on what he knows. But when Jack comes up, he’s suddenly nervous. What he wants is to wrap his arms around Jack, feel his life and banish the image of him, cold and still, in the morgue just an hour before. But does Ianto have that right after defying him?  Does Jack know what he’s done? Will Jack want him anymore, even as a friend?

He approaches awkwardly and holds out his hand. He’s not expecting it when Jack pulls him into an embrace, and stumbles. Then there’s nothing but relief. Jack is alive, and things are all right between them. Jack kisses him.

It’s only later, after Jack has left with the Doctor, that Ianto realizes that his piece of _Jack_ is back. Jack returned it with the kiss, freely and of his own will, and Ianto knows what that means: Jack will come home to him. The others might doubt, but Ianto knows. He can feel it, deep down where Jack has lodged in his heart.

 


End file.
